Sunday, April 27, 2014

President Vladimir Putin: Congratulations on being the First and Only 2014 JUNK BOND KING OF RUSSIA!!

Russia, and the entire federation, is now rated as JUNK BOND!!!!

Time for celebration!Not since the boys at Drexel Burnham Lambert in the late 1980’s, has anyone achieved the MIRACULOUS ECONOMIC WONDER of ALLOWING RUSSIA to be downgraded by STANDARD and POOR’S BOND RATING AGENCY—TO JUNK BOND STATUS!

At the rate of flight capital leaving Russia and depreciation of the Ruble at more than 15% per month leaves Russia COMPLETELY BANKRUPT BY SEPTEMBER 1, 2014. On exactly that date 75 years ago, the Nazis invaded Poland but the war-weary Nazis could not defeat the formidable Soviet/Russian army. But 75 years later, Putin alone did what Stalin, Khrushchev, Gorbachev and even the drunk Boris Yeltsin could not do: destroy Russia from within. Unbelievable!

Many of you may remember the blog that was written months ago warning Putin and the Russians that they should not really mess with America. Let’s give credit where credit is due. Our POTUS, Barack Obama, SecState John Kerry, DCI John Brennan, Gen Martin Dempsey and Sec Treasury Jack Lew –all did a phenomenal job of doing the one thing that Putin really did not understand, and still does not want to hear: ECONOMIC WARFARE!!!! Every time Putin brings a tank over the Ukrainian border- RUSSIA LOSES MORE MONEY. So, if a T-72 Soviet Tank scurries over into Kiev or any where there may be so-called ‘ethnic Russians’—the RUSSIAN PEOPLE WILL SUFFER –ECONOMICALLY .

Please Putin, remember how the Bolshevik Revolution really started—The Economic Abuse of the Serfs and Russian Citizens. It only took 17 brave Russian sailors to take over the Kremlin.

A friendly word of advice from a longtime friend of Russia: STOP f%$@king with AMERICA!!! Putin, don’t forget we are the people who fought a Revolution for a lousy British Tax Act. Manipulation of money, currencies, and assets are our second nature to every American Capitalist.

Marx never got it. He actually intended the pathetic Bolshevik Revolution for Germany and England, certainly not Russia. So don’t make Karl Marx’s mistake, get your ECONOMY INTO SHAPE; and stop CREATING INTERNATIONAL CRISES !!!

Putin, I understand that no one is perfect. Please listen to the words from the Rock Group, “Dire Straits”:

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Putin and Snowden Discuss Mutual Spying In Media:Reminds Me Of The TV Cartoon “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends!”

The trials and tribulations of Edward Snowden—the overpaid Booz Allen, NSA Subcontractor; and President Vladimir Putin, former KGB agent, are approaching a surrealistic level of media exposure that approaches the buffoonery of a TV cartoon series.

In a recent article in the NYTimes International, Friday, 18, 2014, entitled, “In Scripted Surprise, Putin Answers Snowden On Spying” by David M. Herszenhorn (posted earlier) an exchange of dialogue is quoted as follows:

Snowden[DISINGENUOUSLY]:

“So, I’d like to ask you, does Russia INTERCEPT, STORE, or ANALYZE in ANY WAY THE COMMUNICATIONS OF MILLIONS OF [innocent] INDIVIDUALS? “

Putin answers with bravado:“Mr. Snowden, YOU ARE A FORMER [spy] AGENT], I used to WORK IN INTELLIGENCE SERVICE. LET’S SPEAK IN PROFESSIONAL LANGUAGE.” [my emphasis]

Here is the real kicker for me:“But what IS MOST IMPORTANT,” Putin concluded, “IS THAT THE SPECIAL SERVICES, THANK GOD, ARE UNDER A STRICT CONTROL OF THE GOVERNMENT and the SOCIETY, and their activities ARE REGULATED BY LAW.”

If any of you have a chance, please take a look at the video posted on this blog. Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends is a TV cartoon created by Jay Ward and Alexander Anderson in 1959-64, it reflected American society and it’s Cold War Soviet nemesis, featuring Boris Badenov [Russian Spy] and his accomplice, Natasha Fatale.

No two characters can better define the lack of professional integrity and pride than Boris as Putin and Natasha as Snowden. From my vantage point, Snowden has entered the pantheon of neither a ‘spy’ nor a ‘whistleblower;’ but rather he has attained through sheer unadulterated self-aggrandizement, malignant narcissism, and cowardice the highest accolade of running alongside Woody Woodpecker and Roger Rabitt. He has forfeited any legitimacy to the real world by orchestrating his incessant international media appearances.

That Snowden is “Fatale” is so obvious. However, that Putin allowed himself the chance to enter the “Rocky and Bullwinkle Cartoon Series” is surprising if not absurdly inane. For much less stupidity than Putin has shown with Snowden, Andropov (Putin’s former KGB boss) would have put in him in Siberia. But seriously who are the real cartoon characters here??? Booz Allen, Congress, NSA, POTUS….some things never change. Let’s stop funding this cartoon series!

Some reports say that we spend over $75Billion on Intelligence and another $70Billion on Homeland Security. Think about that when you pay your taxes! We celebrate the ignoble Pulitzer Prize of Journalism given to the Washington Post and The Guardian. Hope you are getting the picture, stop believing what is fed to you. Now understand that Snowden is Natasha Fatale and Putin is Boris Badenov. Truth, honesty and modesty can never be commoditized like lying, dishonor and farce.

Monday, April 14, 2014

Iran and Israel: In The Words Of The Great Philosopher, Pogo, “We have met the enemy, and the he is us!”

In an insightful article by Abbas Milani [Iranian] and Israel Waismel-Manor [Israeli] entitled, ”Iran And Israel Trading Places” [NYTimes posted earlier] a political psychological paradox was cleverly discovered. Essentially, both scholars argued that Iran is becoming what Israel had been, secular and pro-western, while the Israel is turning toward theocracy and anti-western.

Bizarre?Not at all!In psychiatric literature, one could extract the concept of ‘identification with the aggressor’. In the more enlightened world of Walter Kelly, the brilliant cartoon artist, Pogo, his principle swamp philosopher, stated this human phenomena more satirically, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”

Let us explore in how many ways, both Iran and Israel are alike and have been alike.

[1] “Both are home to the OLDEST CIVILIZATIONS…

They are PRIMARY NON-ARAB STATES in a mostly ARAB REGION.” .

[2] Founder David Ben Gurion created a NONRELIGIOUS ZIONIST STATE. Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’s Iran was modeled according to the dictates of SECULAR NATIONALISM.

[4] Secularism is ascending once again in Iran. Whereas, the tides of secularism are receding in Israel.

[5] The Orthodox Jewish parties [i.e. Jewish Home] right wing party, hold 25% of the Knesset. They have 6.5 children vs. 2.6 for the rest of the Jews.

[6] In contrast, the birth rate in Iran is falling while the wave of secularism is rising threatening the Ayatollah Khamenei’s ruling party.

[7] World Jewry support for Israel is markedly waning. “The high rate of interfaith marriage among Americans means the pro-Israel lobby will no longer be as large or united as it used to be.”

[8] “Seven million Iranians live in exile. Their economic, scientific, scholarly, and cultural achievements are well known in the United States thanks to people like eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.”

[9] Just as the Jewish diaspora helped to create political support for Israel, now the Iranian exiles will also promote pro-western, pro-liberal tenets to institute in Iran.

In reality, the paradox of nation-state behavior mirrors that of every day human behavior with all of its contradictions, inconsistencies, and paradoxes. Perhaps, the best consolation that we all can find in the ‘trading place’ irony is to follow Pogo’s other sagacious advice:

“Don’t take life so seriously, it ain’t NOHAW PERMANENT.” Walter Kelly.
Amen!

Thursday, April 10, 2014

France: A Country without Remorse or Self-Reflection/Examination!

France Refuses to Recognize its Integral Role in the 1994 Genocidal Killing of 800,000 Tutsi by French-Trained Hutu Militia!

During a 100 day period from April 7, 1994 to mid-July about 800,000 Tutsi were slaughtered by machetes and machine guns. The murder was committed by the predominant Hutu power, supported and trained by the French Government [Mitterand]. This Genocide was preventable! The USA, especially the Administration of President Bill Clinton; as well as-- our allies in France, Belgium, the UN, and the Catholic Church could have intervened but they did not!

But, like most impending Genocides, the good stood by and let the malevolent participants act upon their intended nefarious course of slaughtering innocent men, women and children.

It’s an old story since the beginning of man for which different religions and a myriad of philosophies of good and evil rise and fall without any concern for the living or the dead. Genocide has and will always remain an ethereal concept in which the innocent attain the opportunity to express indignation, if not horror. However, France, the country of Voltaire, Moliere and moral sanctity has for the past twenty or so years refused to own up its culpability despite protests from Bernard Koucher, co-founder of Doctors Without Borders and Rwanda’s President, Paul Kagame, former commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Front.

Even President Bill Clinton has expressed public remorse for his administrations negligence in REFUSING TO PREVENT THE GENOCIDE [my emphasis].

In Clinton’s own words: “If we’d gone in sooner, I believe we could have saved at least a third of the lives that were lost.” This statement contrasts with his then UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright who asserted the following proposition: ”Let’s get out of Rwanda. Leave it to ITS FATE!” [ my emphasis]. Only a young, brave Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs dared to differ with the Clinton administration---our present National Security Advisor, Ambassador Susan Rice.

Even the Belgium government, not often cited for introspective reflections of previous atrocities committed by King Leopold in the Congo, discussed their culpability in their parliament and apologized for their involvement in Rwanda. The duplicitous Vatican admitted that a ‘genocide had occurred but without their permission’. However, the International Criminal Tribunal [ICT] For Rwanda convicted Catholic Bishop Misago for ‘corruption and complicity in the Genocide’. Father Seromba was sentenced by the ICT for his role in the massacre of 2000 Tutsis. This holy father lured the faithful to church where the Tutsis believed they would find refuge and he personally ORDERED BULLDOZERS TO CRUSH THE TUTSIS WITHIN THE CHURCH. [my emphasis].

So what is the problem with Socialist France today? The French leaders cannot and will not admit to the following indisputable facts:

1] France trained, equipped, and armed the Hutu military which they knew would slaughter the minority Tutsis.

2] As hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were being slaughtered under a combined French/ Hutu militia force, the French went into Rwanda under the UN auspices and provided no succor whatsoever. In fact, then French President Mitterand’s son was said to have secured embarrassing files for his father’s complicit actions during that ignominious period.

3] Most of the French Hutu collaborators found sanctuary in France. They all avoided criminal prosecution.

France present day response as of today has been as follows:

“It is unacceptable to LAY BLAME ON FRANCE” said Alain Juppe France’s Foreign Minister at that time. “I call on the president of the Republic and the French government to DEFEND WITHOUT AMBIGUITY THE HONOR OF FRANCE… “ [my emphasis].

My personal and professional experience with France has been one of bewilderment at a country that has refuse to recognize its indelible history of SUPPRESSION, TORTURE, COLLABORATION, IMPERIALISM AND HYPOCRISY! Witness the deportation of 75,000 Jews to the Nazi concentration camps without one order from the German High Command during WWII. Remember: No country was more brutal than the French colonists in Indochina when they tried to suppress the indigenous populations of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia.

From my time in helping to create the peace treaty between Cambodia and Vietnam, I discovered how the French sociologists encouraged the then French Lycee professor, Pol Pot, to slaughter 1.2 million of his own people, in order to create “Zero Civilization”, eliminating all traces of western civilization.

I could go and on but I will end this blog with the most fitting words about the French elite:

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Sec State John Kerry’s “Reality Test” of Middle East Negotiation Failure—Predictably a Failure from the Very Beginning!

Nothing spells failure as loudly as the public pronouncements of Sec State John Kerry’s insistence of personalizing the Palestinian-Israeli Peace Negotiations. In over thirty years in the psychological profession of helping to develop the strategy/tactics for peace treaties, I have never heard more narcissistic possessiveness of a diplomatic engagement than the one that John Kerry tried to implement between Bibi [Israel] and Abbas[ Palestine].

All that one could hear in the media was the constant travail of the poor Kerry flying in splendor from Washington D.C. to all points Middle East and elsewhere. The intense media coverage encouraged by the self-aggrandizing Kerry, who was the first Vietnam combat veteran to bring a camera crew into the war to film his ‘presumed warrior skills’, never abated. Therefore, everything that Kerry did or did not do was dramatized into front page news when in fact very little was accomplished.

No one in the White House was willing to control this ‘Flying Dutchman of Narcissus’ seeking the ever evasive Nobel Peace Prize which his former junior Senatorial colleague, Obama, received for doing absolutely nothing. Oops, sorry about that, Obama did start a war in Afghanistan just after he had grabbed the Swedish farce of a symbol. Trust me no country can be as hypocritical than the so-called “neutral Swedes” who funded and armed the Nazi machinery ad infinitum. Thanks to the nefarious Wallenburg family!!

Now back to our Prince Charming, John Kerry……

Never once throughout his peace initiatives was there any hint of a clear strategy or clearly formulated outcome. What became obvious to me, as well as other national security professionals, was an interminable process of meetings held throughout a nine month gestation period characteristic of birth through procreation. Instead of some type of Memorandum of Understanding [MOU], Kerry achieved in that nine month gestation period a well-documented obituary replete with vituperative slanders from both Israeli and Palestinian officials, pleading for a respite from Kerry’s impolitic intrusions into their nations’ respective progress.

Plainly stated: Kerry made a bad situation exceedingly worse.

In contrast to Kerry’s spectacular defeat, let me offer you a narrative of someone who created a very successful peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Of course, I am talking about the septuagenarian, former President Jimmy Carter.

In 1978, Carter decided to appoint then Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, a discreet, effective diplomat to organize and lead a team of experts who could help the President to develop the impossible task of creating a peace treaty between the former belligerent enemies—Israel, led by Menachim Beguin [Likud] and Anwar Sadat [ Egyptian Military, President].

Unlike Kerry’s fiasco, Vance ordered a ‘gag order’ on everyone so that there would be no discussion with the press from any source other than Vance or Carter. Silence and discretion prevailed throughout the preliminary preparations on the American side. All relevant agencies were included in the development of a clear strategy accompanied by a matrix of possible negotiation strategies and tactics. We had developed this negotiation matrix in order to counter any and all possible obstructions toward a successful outcome. There was no ‘showmanship’ or ‘self-aggrandizing’ allowed or tolerated.

I can say that the CIA, under Admiral Stanfield Turner, provided all types of relevant intelligence regarding personality differences; possible political and economic quagmires; and historical imperatives. However, the most compelling contributions from my point of view were from the so-called, highly maligned State Department “Arabists”.

Famous US Foreign Service Officers like Herman Eilts [Egypt]; David Newsom; Frank Wisner; Arthur Houghton; Nick Veliotes; Dean Brown were essential to the understanding the Arab/Palestinian consequences of the Camp David Accords. Unfortunately, these experts and FSOs like them had been attacked by the Neocons, like Robert Kaplan and other Jews, who had never really ever worked intensively on any treaty or accord dealing with two completely different cultures and personalities.

Back to the main success story-Camp David Accord, 1978.

The real hero of this major success story is the oft forgotten and purposefully overlooked President Jimmy Carter. Vance asked me one final question before he, Zbig Brezinski [National Security Advisor] and Carter went to Camp David: “What do you think will happen, Doctor Steve?”

“I can predict Begin’s and Sadat’s behaviors. They will want to go down in history as statesmen and not ‘terrorists’.”

Then I hesitated. Ironically, I could not predict the following person:“Quite frankly, I don’t know how President Carter will respond.”

As many of you had learned from my previous blogs, I had been insubordinate to POTUS when attempting to the save the lives of five hundred hostages in the infamous Hanafi Muslim Hostage Seige of Washington, D. C. in 1977. As it turned out, even I was surprised to discover that President Carter had singlehandedly manipulated both Begin and Sadat into an agreement that lasted almost half a century.

Never once was that agreement entitled Carter’s Initiative or Vance’s Israel-Egypt Agreement. The treaty was called correctly the Camp David Peace Treaty.

What have we learned since then?

Clearly, our so-called leaders do not rely on the expertise of those who have succeeded in the past to create treaties or effective strategies to counter aggressive overtures like Putin in Crimea. American leaders want to re-invent the wheel over and over again.

Recently, I saw President Jimmy Carter on the Stephen Colbert Show, Colbert asked him a very penetrating question:“Has Obama asked you for advice?”

“No,” Carter politely answered with some southern charm.

That ‘no’ resounded loudly in my ears.

If this administration or any other Presidential administration does not ask advice from it’s own distinguished predecessors, whatever their political affiliation, then America will have to rely on the likes of “The Kerry Flying Dutchman”, wandering about in a worldwind of meaningless process. Our leaders are ignoring and wasting a valuable American asset if they continue to ignore our past foreign policy successes. Politicians must put egos aside and tap into this expertise from those that were on the ground and who are still among us.

Please note that Putin of Russia and Xi Jipeng of China are all waiting to return to the main stage of foreign policy. They will return on their own terms.

All that money we have spent on electronic surveillance and force structure can never compensate for good old fashioned experience, competency and discretion.

America! do not allow your leaders to exhibit foolish, childish, self-adulation, signifying much of nothing more than a Malignant National Narcissism. If we do not hold leadership accountable, America will be the loser.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

The American Inspector Clouseau: Jonathan J. Pollard

An American Spy for Israel will be Released in Return For Hundreds Of Palestinian Prisoners and a Partial Freeze On Construction in The West Bank Settlement! Thank God!! We finally got rid of this pain-in-our-ass!From time to time, I try to amuse myself and you at the same time by highlighting articles in the NYTimes about issues that I find interesting. The article written by Jodi Rudoren on April 1, 2014, called “U.S and Israel Said to Be Near Agreement on Release of Spy” highlights one of the more bizarre stories in the annals of effective CIA/FBI/MI counter-intelligence.

As most of you readers know by now, I have been quite critical from time to time about our Intelligence Community. However, in the case of the Israeli Spy, Jonathan Pollard, an American Jewish Naval Analyst who sold Top Secret information to the Israelis, our intelligence capability was near perfect. I was in no way involved with this case but through the years of my tenure in and out of government, the name Pollard came up again and again .

Apparently, he was US Navy Intelligence Analyst who tried to sell secrets first to Mexico then to other countries and finally ended up with a deal with Israel.

What made him interesting to me as ‘spy’ was the fact that stories floated around him like flotsam and jetsam characterizing him as ‘immature’, ‘erratic’, ‘bizarre’, and even ‘crazy’. Now those characteristics alone would not make him a very interesting case study in the success of American Counter-Intelligence.

What made him a significant, if not a controversial figure, is that fact that Pollard became a symbol to the right wing American Jewish and Israeli lobbies- sort of a “Jewish martyr” who was being persecuted for his religion.

Of course, those accusations were beyond bizarre. However, watching three major Republican candidates [Christie, Walker, Jeb] kow-tow before the Jewish High Priest of Corruption, Gambling and Republican Support—Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas, is equally repulsive and eerie as Pollard’s ‘canonization’. The story of Pollard continues to the point where he, Pollard, transmutes from outright American spy to an Israeli spy by receiving Israeli citizenship in prison.

Next Pollard transmutes into another form—a pawn in the Peace Negotiations between Israel and Palestine.

Seriously, I could not have created this story line in any of my novels. Reality has made it harder and harder for me to write fiction.

So where is Pollard now in this narrative from spy to peace treaty pawn?

I have to congratulate this Obama administration for commoditizing Pollard, the stumbling, fumbling inspector Clouseau for hundreds of very dangerous Palestinian prisoners including some Israeli citizens who were jailed for real ‘terrorist activities’. I think the Palestinian people should take heart from this particular inane story.

Think about this, my dear colleagues in the Middle East:One completely disastrous, inept, American Jew, who could not even spy effectively is now worth hundreds of effective Palestinian terrorists! I think the Founding Fathers of Israel would have had a major heart attack if they had seen this trade. How is this Pollard Pawn worth bargaining for some peace in the Middle East??!!

Congratulations to Obama, Kerry and Netanyahu.

Listen, Bibi, do I have a deal for you!What would you give up if I sent you our Sheldon Adelson and his wife???? He could create a mini-Vegas with a holy-land theme in Israel! You need the business. Think of the tourists!!That would really help us to resurrect the GOP, and give it a fighting chance against the Democrats!

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About Me

Dr. Steve Pieczenik is a critically acclaimed author of psycho-political thrillers and the co-creator of the New York Times best-selling "Tom Clancy's Op-Center" and "Tom Clancy's Net Force" book series. He is also one of the world's most experienced international crisis managers and hostage negotiators. His novels are based on his twenty years experience in resolving international crises for five U.S. administrations.